The worst press release of 2012, so far: the interstellar dating service

2012 has only just begun, and already we have a contender for
the stupidest press release of the year. A dating site has declared
that it's planning on launching the "world's first intergalactic
dating app".

Before we get into the meat of the release, I'm a bit hesitant
as to whether I should mention the name of the company or not. On
the one hand, I know that this is a publicity attempt, and I don't
want to give them the satisfaction. On the other hand, it seems
only right to name and shame. As a compromise, I'll let you decide.
This link goes
to their site, and this is the PR agency that
sent us the release. It's up to you as to whether you want to hover
over, or even click, those links.

It begins with a pun. I have no complaints about that.

"Singletons should be over the
moon. A British company yesterday announced plans to launch the
world's first intergalactic dating app."

The world's first what?

"The smart phone application
will be accessible to 'alien life forms' on planets up to one light
year (six trillion miles) from Earth."

Leaving aside the question of why alien life forms is in
quotation marks, I'm trying to work out how the company has managed
to limit the app's use to planets within a light year's radius of
Earth. Has a ring of signal jammers been installed at that
distance? Is this some form of intergalactic DRM?

"Extra-terrestrials will be able
to download the app, for free, and make contact with humans by a
form of 'space-age' email or futuristic type of text
message."

The Space Age is widely considered to have begun with the launch
of Sputnik in 1957. Given that arguably the first email system was
MIT's CTSS
MAIL, developed in 1965, it's hard to argue that email isn't
"space-age" already. In which case, why bother mentioning it in the
first place? What a "futuristic type" of text message is, is
anyone's guess. Maybe it's in neon.

"A two-way GPS satellite --
armed with "Nasa-inspired" technology -- will transfer the
communications between Earth and the far-flung corners of our
galaxy, the Milky Way, almost instantly via radio waves."

This is my favourite paragraph of all -- there are so many
moments of utter WTF. Let's pick through every single one. They've
mysteriously picked out a GPS satellite, which is likely to be
rather too busy with the GPS system to be sending love notes to
aliens. I also love that the technology is "inspired" by Nasa. Just
like the rockets I built from Lego when I was eight.

Then there's the "far flung corners of the galaxy" bit -- which
clashes with the aforementioned galactic DRM clause. The Milky Way
is about 100,000 light years across, and we're not in the centre, making the farthest flung corner around
75,000 light years away, give or take a few thousand light years.
Again, though, there's nothing stopping the radio waves travelling
any further, so it's not clear why they pick out the far-flung
corners of the Milky Way as a limit here.

Finally, there's the claim that radio waves mean "almost
instant" transmission. While it's true that the speed of light is
pretty damn quick, it doesn't really seem fair to say it's nearly
instant over distances like 75,000 light years. After all, it would
take a radio wave 75,000 years to travel that distance. 75,000
years ago, humanity was only
just starting to make its way out of Africa and into Asia. By
the time your messages get to that cute alien on the Scutum
Centaurus arm, humanity could well be extinct.

"Sending messages, and even
romantic declarations, into space is nothing new. Professional
alien hunters have been sending text messages into space in the
hope of receiving a reply from extra-terrestrials for
years."

Every message that you have ever sent over a wireless
electromagnetic medium (mobile phone, SMS, email, or plain ol'
radio or television) has gone into space. Most of them won't have
made it much further than a few tens of light years away, because
wireless communications haven't been with the mass market for that
long, but that still reaches more than
50 other solar systems.

"But according to dating website
[redacted], its new app will open up the possibility of
communicating with alien life forms to 'normal, broadminded people'
- rather than just the scientific community."

I particularly love the implication here that the scientific
community aren't "normal, broadminded people". More over the
page.

Comments

Hey man! the actual sense is between the lines... you gonna get contact with holywood people! yep they are extra-terrestrial beings... got it?

Luiz Bezerra da Silva Filho

Jan 12th 2012

Man is if this was real it'll be fantastic! I've always wanted to date a hideous gelatinous blob from another planet. Anyway I best be off to the moon now I got to pick up some milk.

NukeFish

Jan 13th 2012

Hold up - how can a dating app with a range of one light year be interstellar - much less intergalactic - for lonely lovers orbiting Sol? Proxima Centauri is 4 light years away. You'd have to be orbiting Proxima Centauri, at which point you could flirt (slowly) with beings orbiting Alpha Centauri AB.